During the period 2009-2013 the NBN rollout became a political football, resulting in an environment where NBN Co experienced many constraints and constant diversions of management time and energy into non-productive activity. Under enormous political pressure NBN Co had to balance its plan between what is technically required to deliver a first-class infrastructure, on the one hand, and delivering as much as possible before the September 2013 election. This led to short cuts, underestimates of costs and wrong planning decisions.

After the election the new government announced significant changes to the plan, revised the rollout projections downward and launched a range of reviews.

It promised to honour existing contracts that have been signed under the previous government; and as most of the NBN budget had been locked in by the previous government it instructed NBN Co to come up with a plan that will see as much as possible from the original NBN plan salvaged, however, the FttH roll out would be replaced as soon as possible by a so called multi technology mix which will include VDSL and HFC.